


Three Little Words

by tawg



Category: Dr Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ninth Doctor watches over the Tenth, and envies him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Little Words

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the end of Doomsday (s2e13). Written for the DrWho100.

Rose. Rose Tyler.

If anything, I fancy she likes the way your mouth says her name more than she ever did mine. I spent too much time in all the different Norths, does things to your vowels. The way I said it, it always came out 'Rows'. As in, 'Pretty maids all in their rows.'

Rows Tie-lah, who was like… she was the girl in the shop, wasn't she? The girl next door. And then one day, the switch is flipped and she's not a girl anymore, and next door is galaxies away, and your hearts are somewhere they shouldn't be all of a sudden.

That switch was you, you lucky bastard.

I found her, but you got to… It's the first time you've said it, the first time those words are pressing against your tongue like they'll choke you. It's been so long since any of us have said it that there's a silence in here, in your mind. Just those three words that you should be saying to her face swimming round and round. She's crying enough to drown the void, and you're standing there like you're scared to say it, like you're me.

All of us, even One - especially One - are desperate for you to say it. The essence of him, leaving forward with those hunched shoulders - Gods, he lived so long compared to us all - with that fist of tightness in his chest, in yours, in ours. When you open your mouth to say it, we all clamour to slap our hands over his gleeful wizened eyes. Because he loved his granddaughter, and you can't see her like that now.

You see her with your own eyes, without the specs, without the girl, and the shop, and the mother. You see her as the person who would have never ever left you.

You see her fade away.

The words are still on your tongue, still choking you. And you'll never be able to breathe again.


End file.
